According to The Guardian, Japanese scientists have turned fantasy into reality by creating an invisibility cloak that makes it possible to see straight through its wearer. He, or she, simply vanishes from view.
The garment - demonstrated last week at Nextfest, an exhibition of emerging technologies in San Francisco - is the work of Japanese inventor Susumu Tachi, a professor of computer science and physics at the University of Tokyo. 'It's a kind of augmented reality,' he said of his device.
In reality, the 'optical camouflage' cloak is anything but invisible. It is made up of 'retro-reflective material' coated with tiny light-reflective beads that cover its entire length. The cloak is also fitted with cameras that project what is at the back of the wearer on to the front, and vice versa. The effect, as the Japanese team demonstrated last week, is to make the wearer blend with his background.
The material was used to coat a ball, a brick and a cloak. In each case, it appeared as if the viewer could see through each item as it was moved about by a human operator to the back of the room.
The effect was not total, but it was sufficient to demonstrate that optical camouflage is technically possible, though one expert - writing in Wired magazine recently - pointed out that, for an invisibility cloak to work, it would have to have six stereoscopic cameras built into it, be covered with 11.6 million 'hyperpixels', each consisting of a very bright electronic display, and be controlled by a super-fast computer that would run on a power source that could be built into the cloak.
This is the coolest thing I've seen!!
Heres a link to some videos of it in action
Invisibility cloak